trillian2CenterICQ import utility

A small utility that imports the Buddies.xml file from the Trillian (link no longer available) instant messenger to a CenterICQ (link no longer available) contact list. For the time being it supports only MSN and ICQ contacts. Latest version is 0.62. This utility is also integrated within the standard distribution of CenterICQ (cicqconv script).

Trillian was the Windows client that spoke every messaging protocol at once; CenterICQ, Konstantin Klyagin's, was the same idea for a terminal, and it kept its contacts as one directory per contact under ~/.centericq/. Moving from the one to the other meant retyping a contact list, or writing this.

What it does

It does not parse the XML. Two regular expressions pick the ICQ and MSN buddy lines out of Buddies.xml, which was enough for Trillian 1.0's file. For every ICQ contact it creates a directory named after the UIN; for every MSN contact a directory named m plus the account name, with a partial info file holding the address. Contacts that already have a directory are left alone (so it can be run again), and it ends with a count of what it found and what it imported.

Two variables at the top of the script are the configuration: $TRILLIAN_BUDDY_LIST, the path to Buddies.xml, and $OUTPUT_DIR, which should be your ~/.centericq/ directory. It ships set to /, which is not where you want a few hundred new directories :). Then perl trillian_convert.pl.

Where it stops

ICQ and MSN only; Trillian also did AIM, Yahoo and IRC, and those lines are skipped. An MSN contact gets its address but not its display name. In 2026 it still runs on the Perl that ships with macOS (I fed it a made-up buddy list to check, twice, and the second run imported nothing, as it should), which says more about Perl than about the script.

One of the small utilities (2002–2007); the others are listed there, each with a page like this one.